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Portal:Kenya

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Kenya portal
Kenya portal

Introduction

Location of Kenya
The flag of Kenya

Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 53.3 million as of mid-2025, it is the 27th-most populous country in the world and the seventh-most populous in Africa. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi. The second-largest and oldest city is Mombasa, a port city located on Mombasa Island. Other major cities within the country include Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret. Going clockwise, Kenya is bordered by South Sudan to the northwest, Ethiopia to the north, Somalia to the east, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, Tanzania to the southwest, and Lake Victoria and Uganda to the west. Its geography, climate and population vary. In western Rift Valley counties, the landscape includes cold, snow-capped mountaintops (such as Batian, Nelion, and Point Lenana on Mount Kenya) with surrounding forests, wildlife, and fertile agricultural regions in temperate climates. In other areas there are dry, arid, and semi-arid climates, as well as absolute deserts (such as the Chalbi Desert and Nyiri Desert).

Kenya's earliest inhabitants included some of the first humans to evolve from ancestral members of the genus Homo. Ample fossil evidence for this evolutionary history has been found at Koobi Fora. Later, Kenya was inhabited by hunter-gatherers similar to the present-day Hadza people. According to archaeological dating of associated artifacts and skeletal material, Cushitic speakers first settled in the region's lowlands between 3,200 and 1,300 BC, a phase known as the Lowland Savanna Pastoral Neolithic. Nilotic-speaking pastoralists (ancestral to Kenya's Nilotic speakers) began migrating from present-day South Sudan into Kenya around 500 BC. Bantu people settled at the coast and the interior between 250 BC and 500 AD. European contact began in 1500 AD with the Portuguese Empire, and effective colonisation of Kenya began in the 19th century during the European exploration of Africa. Modern-day Kenya emerged from a protectorate, established by the British Empire in 1895, and the subsequent Kenya Colony, which began in 1920. Mombasa was the capital of the British East Africa Protectorate, which included most of what is now Kenya and southwestern Somalia, from 1889 to 1907. Disputes between the UK and the colony led to the Mau Mau revolution, which began in 1952, and the declaration of Kenya's independence in 1963. After independence, Kenya remained a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

Kenya is a presidential representative democratic republic, in which elected officials represent the people and the president is the head of state and government. The country is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, COMESA, International Criminal Court, as well as several other international organisations. It is also a major non-NATO ally of the United States. Kenya's economy is the largest in East and Central Africa, with Nairobi serving as a major regional commercial hub. With a per-capita Gross National Income of $2,110, the country is a lower-middle-income economy. Agriculture is the country's largest economic sector; tea and coffee are the sector's traditional cash crops, while fresh flowers are a fast-growing export. The service industry, particularly tourism, is also one of the country's major economic drivers. Kenya is a member of the East African Community trade bloc, though some international trade organisations categorise it as part of the Greater Horn of Africa. Africa is Kenya's largest export market, followed by the European Union. (Full article...)


Railway lines built, planned and under construction, as of 2021

The East African Railway Master Plan is a proposal for rejuvenating the railways serving Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, and building new railways to serve Rwanda and Burundi. The objective is to further the economic development of East Africa by increasing the efficiency and speed, and lowering the cost, of transporting cargo between major ports on the Indian Ocean coast and the interior.

A later step would expand the East African railway network to South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo). The plan is managed by infrastructure ministers from participating East African Community countries in association with transport consultation firm CPCS Transcom Limited. (Full article...)

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Giraffe in Nairobi
Giraffe in Nairobi
A giraffe in Nairobi National Park with the Nairobi skyline in the background

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Hot Air Balloon Safari in Maasai Mara
Hot Air Balloon Safari in Maasai Mara

Narok County is a county in Kenya. Narok County has a population of 850,920. Its capital and largest town is Narok. (Read more...)

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This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.

Ruins of the Great Mosque at Gedi

The ruins of Gedi are a UNESCO World Heritage site near the Indian Ocean coast of eastern Kenya. The site is adjacent to the town of Gedi (also known as Gede) in the Kilifi District and within the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest.

Gedi is one of many medieval Swahili coastal settlements that stretch from Barawa, Somalia, to the Zambezi River in Mozambique. There are 116 known Swahili sites stretching from southern Somalia to Vumba Kuu at the Kenya-Tanzania border. Since the rediscovery of the Gedi ruins by colonialists in the 1920s, Gedi has been one of the most intensely excavated and studied of those sites, along with Shanga, Manda, Ungwana, Kilwa, and the Comoros. (Full article...)

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In the news

Wikinews Kenya portal
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9 June 2026 – War crimes during the Sudanese civil war
Victims of atrocities linked to the civil war in Sudan urges Kenya's Director of Public Prosecutions to approve charges against 10 members of the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces, including some believed to reside in Kenya, making it the first war crimes complaint filed against the RSF outside of Sudan. (AP)
2 June 2026 – 2026 Ebola epidemic
A court in Kenya blocks the U.S. from opening a new Ebola quarantine facility in the country for three weeks amidst protests that broke out against the facility in which two people were killed. (Reuters)
1 June 2026 – 2026 Ebola epidemic
Youths gather in Nanyuki, Kenya to protest against the establishment of a quarantine center at the Laikipia Air Base for American citizens exposed to the Ebola virus. (AP)
29 May 2026 – 2026 Gilgil school fire
The fire at a girls school in Gilgil, Nakuru County, Kenya yesterday is investigated as an arson attack. Eight students of the academy are arrested as suspects. Separately, the school's board of management is dissolved amidst suspicions of negligence in fire safety measures. (BBC News)
28 May 2026 – 2026 Gilgil school burning
Sixteen students are killed and 79 others injured in a fire in a dormitory at a girls school in Gilgil, Nakuru County, Kenya. (BBC News)
26 May 2026 – 2026 Central Africa Ebola epidemic
The United States announces plans to send health officers to Kenya to open a potential quarantine facility amidst the Ebola epidemic. (Reuters)

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Credit: kathrynbullock
Panorama of Mount Kenya around Shipton's Camp

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The following are images from various Kenya-related articles on Wikipedia.

Topics in Kenya

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